This trip report is to detail and share my powerful experience with a heroic dose of mushrooms.
A few relevant trip details:
Age: 27
Weight: 180 lbs
Substance: 5g ground golden teacher psilocybin mushrooms mixed in lemon juice for 20 minutes (lemon tek method).
Stomache completely empty, 48 hours fasted (water only).
Mindset: felt ok and mentally clear from the fast. I remember some slight apprehension right before consumption. The kind of feeling you get when there's been a lot of buildup and you know you're going into something important. Kind of like before a final exam.
Setting: bedroom
Trip length: 10-12 hours
Here's my heroic dose story as someone who has had amazing mushroom trips, bad trips, and also struggles with mental health issues. I did 5g of lemon tek'd golden teachers after 2 days fasting. My goal going in was to heal deep childhood traumas, and explore my inner self.
Shortly into it I remember feeling like there were two powerful presences, one which was blue and one red. I was cross legged and meditating in pure darkness with an eye mask and total silence with earplugs. Then I completely lost consciousness and awareness for hours. When I started to come to I was on my bedroom floor and I remember feeling intense fears related to my ego. I still can't fully describe what it was like, but I remember seeing/experiencing/going into a fractal with a lot of tendrils.
I saw myself in a lot of other people and situations within that fractal, though I still can't remember much because it was close to around the peak of the trip, which was so strong that it was a complete memory blank. The fractal experience wasn't fun. It was mixed with fears about losing my mind and thinking that maybe I'll never stop tripping. I had a general lack of trust that I would ever get out of that experience. This lasted an unknown amount of time but I estimate an hour.
When I finally did regain more function, I began to listen to my trip saving music (ripple by the grateful dead) to try to change the setting and feeling I was in but that didn't help. The visuals I was getting in my room were not enjoyable either. The picture of a shroom superhero I had drawn beforehand on my white board looked distorted, and my hand was spiraling in towards the candle that I lit on my floor.
At this point I felt extremely alone and realized I couldn't deal with this trip and the emotions by myself anymore. But my roommates had already taken off from hearing me repeating things in my room. I was saying I took too much, over and over. I hadn't told them beforehand what I was going into because I didn't really trust them and I thought I could handle it myself. When I realized they had left, I went to other parts of the house in an effort to move and search out relief, but I knew it was still going to last a long time.
My stomach ached from being completely empty, except for the shrooms and lemon juice, I hadn't eaten anything and couldn't eat. I also felt cold and alone. Finally I decided to call a friend. This person wasn't really able or willing to be there for me on that level, it wasn't really a good friendship, and we haven't talked since.
After hanging up with them I was still trying to figure out what to do, but I couldn't and that's when I cracked open emotionally. While lying on the floor I wailed and cried without caring how loud I was or worrying about how I sounded to other people. All I knew at that time was the pain and bad emotions I was feeling and I had to let them out. As a very socially anxious person, this was a first for me, and probably something I needed for a long time. I had never allowed or shown that 'weakness' from myself to anyone before, not my friends, family, not even to myself.
Then I called my brother. He came and stayed with me, and just listened to me talk about the Bible for hours. The trip gave me a strong fear of God and I was very humbled and appreciative of Jesus' story. I was also very assertive in talking about it and what I was thinking, much more than usual. I ended up watching documentaries and movies about Jesus and the apostles for hours because it was the only thing that felt comforting and safe and I did that until I could fall asleep sleep. Total trip time was approximately 10-12 hours because I don't know what time I finally passed out.
The first days and weeks afterwards were not good. I was very open and sensitive emotionally and it took time for my mind and emotions to heal and come back to balance. My eyes were much more wide open, and I cried some times for seemingly no reason other than my emotions were freer and had a chance to harmonize and heal. It felt alright to cry. Now it's been 3.5ish months since the experience and I'm feeling better.
In the end, I can say that as someone who has struggles with mental health and family issues, a heroic dose was tempting as a way to get some relief and to delve into my mind in a deeper way. It faced me with my fears and cracked my emotions open, which is probably what I needed, but I could have done it in a safer way. I made some mistakes like fasting plus lemon tekking (too hard on the stomach), feeling untrusting of people around me (emotionally unsafe setting), and going it alone (not having an experienced sitter or guide to help me process or guide what I was going through).
